Author Archives: Sandra

AC2 on The Game Archaeologist

October 18, 2011 by Sandra | 3 Comments »

Justin “Syp” Olivetti at Massively interviewed Eric about his experiences on Asheron’s Call 2.

Posted in News | 3 Comments

the reason you write clean code

September 19, 2011 by Sandra | 7 Comments »

(02:26:08) Eric Heimburg: the reason you write clean code isn’t to be awesome, it’s so that you can spend that cleanliness at the proper moment of desperation. Like at the end of Plum Mountain’s 200 hour development, I had elegant … Continue reading →

Posted in Programming | 7 Comments

“The Dev Team” Footprint

February 10, 2011 by Sandra | 3 Comments »

Sanya Weathers at Eating Bees posted last month about “Things That Make Me /Facepalm When I See Them From Moderators“. You should read and embrace the post in its entirely. But I wanted to expand on one of her points. … Continue reading →

Posted in Community | 3 Comments

Who’s In Charge of Quality?

February 3, 2011 by Sandra | 3 Comments »

Who gets to say when an MMO patch is ‘done’? Does QA answer to the live producer? Can QA stop the launch of a patch or does the producer alone have that responsibility? Every live MMO team I’ve been on … Continue reading →

Posted in Production | 3 Comments

Graphical Upgrades Are Dangerous

January 27, 2011 by Sandra | 13 Comments »

You are an older MMO. You don’t look sexy anymore. Your players think a graphical upgrade would help you recruit new players. They tell you how embarrassed they are to be seen playing you and how easily they could convince … Continue reading →

Posted in Business | 13 Comments

Why We Need More Women Developers

January 17, 2011 by Sandra | 12 Comments »

When game developers have a conversation about women gamers, if often goes something like this: Women gamers are a vast untapped market. If we can tap into that market we can make lots of money. So we better hire some … Continue reading →

Posted in Production | 12 Comments

Ready the Meat Sacrifices

January 10, 2011 by Sandra | 3 Comments »

Scott Jennings of Broken Toys (whom I still call Lum in my head) posted last week about the upcoming slate of 2011 MMOs. It’s a good post, and if you read this blog I expect that you have already read … Continue reading →

Posted in Business | 3 Comments

Converting Players with Content is a Waste

January 5, 2011 by Sandra | 13 Comments »

The other day Eric posted about why There Shouldn’t Be A Signup Form. His post smacked me over the head with something I should have thought about a long time ago: the futility of converting through content. At some point or … Continue reading →

Posted in Production | 13 Comments

New Year, New Method

January 1, 2011 by Sandra | 11 Comments »

Eric and I have a blog. Who knew, right? Well, you probably did – you are reading it after all. Anyway, we’ve been posting here for over three years now. Our posting rate has never been astronomical … and it’s … Continue reading →

Posted in News | 11 Comments

Don’t Reverse Your Conventions After Six Years

December 15, 2010 by Sandra | 11 Comments »

I’ve been fascinated with Cataclysm, the latest World of Warcraft expansion, since I first heard about it. In many ways this expansion is a live team’s dream: an opportunity to fix the whole goddamned mess that the previous teams have … Continue reading →

Posted in Design | 11 Comments